Yuguda, Okonjo-Iweala, NSE DG, others to grace Business Hallmark’s PPF Lecture

Bauchi State Governor Isa Yuguda, Minister of Finance and Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and the Director General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Mr. Oscar Onyema are amongst the dignitaries expected to grace the November edition of Business Hallmark Newspaper’s Public Policy Forum lecture billed for Thursday, November 3, 2011, at the Nigeria Institute of Bankers, Adeola Hopewell Street, Victoria Island, Lagos. The event will start at 10.30 am.

The lecture, titled: ‘Restoring Market Confidence In An Era of Economic Uncertainties: Challenges and Prospects’, will be delivered by the Director General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Mr. Oscar Onyema.  

According to a statement released by the organisers of the Forum, and signed by its Chairman, Professor (Ambassador) George Obiozor, the forum was established in order to create enhanced social awareness and education for Nigerians.

“We are inspired to initiate this because of our realization that ignorance and lack of thorough appreciation of issues are some of the problems militating against the rapid development of our country.

The lecture is expected to examine the meltdown of the Nigerian capital market characterized by the crash of the market capitalization from a record high of N13.5 million in early 2008 to less than N4.5 trillion in the corresponding period of 2009, the prospect of the market bouncing back from the shocked crash and investors making profit, especially now that share prices are at their lowest. It will also outline the various measures being pursued to restore traction in the market.

DG of the NSE, Mr. Oscar Onyema, it would be recalled, assured stakeholders in the industry that his management would deploy such drivers of success at the exchange as organizational efficiency and fair level playing field for all participants in order to restore confidence in the market.

“Therefore we will be focusing on enhancing operations efficiency, technology and supporting infrastructure, capacity building efforts and the demutualization of the exchange” he said. We recognize the need to deepen this market. This is underpinned by the fact that: we can only boast of 196 companies on our main Board of which 125 symbols trade daily on avenue; we offer only two asset classes for trading, with an average of 5,500 transactions, volume of 350M shares and value of 3B naira per day. This is why we have placed business development on the front burner. We have identified listing development; market development; product development and strategic alliances as the four main tactical lines of attack in our repositioning agenda to operate as a commercial entity “he explained

Bauchi State Governor, His Excellency, Alhaji Isa Yuguda will chair the public lecture, while the Minister of Finance and Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the Special Guest of Honour.  Other discussants expected at the lecture are Mr. Albert Okumagba, MD/CEO BGL Limited, Mr. Teslim Shitta-Bey, CEO, Grant Alsthom and Mr. Olufemi Awoyemi, MD/CEO Proshare, among others.

The statement also stated that the lecture was organized to further deepen public appreciation of the invaluable services of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

“We were inspired to do this because of our realization that ignorance and lack of thorough appreciation of issues are some of the problems militating against the rapid development of our country.

“Public Policy Forum is a civic outreach programme set up by our Newspaper to provide a platform for Nigerians to articulate their views on diverse socio-political, economic, cultural and even religious issues. Through this medium, we hope to create enhanced social awareness and education for millions of our country men and women”.